Field of the Invention
The claimed invention relates to computer aided technologies (CAx) such as computer aided design, engineering, analysis and manufacture in general and apparatus, systems, means, and methods for multi-user CAx editing in particular.
Description of the Related Art
Large design and engineering projects require coordination of the efforts of many designers or engineers. Designers and engineers may have various CAx tools that they have experience with, have been trained to use, or simply prefer. Existing CAx data may have been created using still other CAx tools. Each of these CAx tools may have incompatible file formats.
Existing CAx systems, however, are not well-suited to collaborative design and editing. For example, data files that are shared among several designers and edited by them may create editing conflicts that often result in data loss and/or corruption.
Accordingly, the present invention identifies and addresses a need for additional and improved systems and methods for multi-user CAx editing conflict detection and management.